Stefan,

You are correct that the code for finding the best balloon location 
never worked properly, so this fix was very much needed and is 
extremely welcome.  Thank you very much!

I also agree that the "only one balloon can be visible at a time" 
restriction is too restrictive and that we need a way to allow some 
balloons to persist, even while by default we continue to enforce the 
one-balloon principle.  I hope that others on the list take a look at 
your scheme here and offer their feedback.

And don't worry -- I can assure you that your efforts, even if they 
turn out to require some tweaking for 2.7 (which I'll make certain 
gets done if necessary), will *not* be wasted!

Thanks again -- this is an important contribution.

   -- Scott


At 8:56 PM +0100 12/23/99, Stefan Matthias Aust wrote:
> >From the change file:
>
>"Refactored balloon support:  The balloon morph now really finds its best
>location - this never worked before I think.  Stepping now works even with
>no target morph.  Furthermore, you can now remove an existing help text
>again and customize the help text color for your own morphs."
>
>I wanted to understand and use the BalloonMorph to display "speech bubble".
> This was the first step.  See below.
>
>All changes are for 2.6 but will hopefully also work with 2.7.  I'd be
>really glad if this effort wasn't wasted time...
>
>There's one problem left:  The method #showBalloon: will first delete all
>existing instances of BalloonMorph before showing a new one.  This also
>affects my own speech bubbles :-(  This is done to make sure that there's
>only one help text at a given time - but still, I think this is not the
>right way to do this.
>
>I'd suggest to makeup a global world property #balloon which remembers the
>current balloon and then show balloon will only remove that balloon not
>touching mine.  Currently, every morph has such a property but it doesn't
>really use it.
>
>I've now also added a change set that implements this idea.  It seems to
>work - at least in a full screen morphic world.  I'd appreciate if somebody
>else would comment on these changes.
>
>bye
>Attachment converted: Mfalme:Balloon-Patch.23Dec822pm.zip 
>(pZIP/pZIP) (0002F5FC)
>Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="Balloon-Enh.23Dec854pm.cs"
>Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Balloon-Enh.23Dec854pm.cs"
>
>Attachment converted: Mfalme:Balloon-Enh.23Dec854pm.cs (????/----) (0002F5FD)
>
>--
>Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf.